One of the spring events that I’ve come to look forward the most is the Faculty Academy for Teaching and Learning at the University of Mary Washington. This year I’ll be attending as an “esteemed guest presenter” and sucking in all the energy and creativity that event fosters. I’m honored to follow in the footsteps of such innovators as Alan Levine and Barbara Ganley and trying to figure out what I can add to the mix that will justify the invitation.
One contribution that I might make to the gathering is a bona fide historical artifact. I can talk persuasively about such topics as why the Commodore Vic 20 is a better home computer than the Apple II or a lament about why no one has been able to come up with a laptop that’s even close to the functionality of my Radio Shack Model 100.
One of the nice things that the organizers of the faculty academy provide is a widget that gives the countdown to the event. (29 days, 16 hours and 17 minutes as I start writing this.). The countdown serves as a constant reminder that I have a workshop and presentation to do in front of a whole bunch of people, most with laptops connected to Twitter and who aren’t afraid to use them! I’ve always felt a responsibility to try to connect when I’m making a presentation, and the special place that the Faculty Academy has assumed in the Academic Technology community really turns up the heat to contribute something meaningful. As a genuine historical artifact, my first thought for a workshop title is “Ten Ways You Can Use Vi to Get More Done and Enjoy Life More!” But then, I’ve got 29 days 15 hours and 30 minutes to reconsider.
Every few years those of us in public colleges are plunged into the same turmoil of budget uncertainty that invariably results in canceling travel and professional development, hiring freezes, and creative attempts to defer payments for every non-essential expense possible. The atmosphere of fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD) hangs over every decision and even the most promising experiments in innovative teaching and learning are likely to be abandoned. In Virginia, most of us in are in the midst of the FUD part of the cycle right now with no long-term end in sight.
This is the part of the cycle where this Change article by ALan Guskin and Mary Marcy should be required reading for every leader in a college or university. The authors argue that these periodic retrenchments are not short-term problems–they are long-term and structural. The three sources of income for universities–tuition, state and federal government support and private philanthropy–are all limited, while those of us who work in higher education have unlimited aspirations and imaginations that eventually have to bump up against the sustainability of our funding models.
Guskin and Marcy call for leaders to recognize the fundamental changes in the higher education environment and to try to find more sustainable ways of dealing with the structural limitations of future funding. Transformation rather than “muddling through” is the goal.
“Muddling through” is a time-honored practice for dealing with recurring fiscal problems in higher education. So in the face of the present fiscal constraints, one can almost hear people voicing familiar sentiments: “We have always been successful in the past and we will surely come out of this okay…But in the present environment, responses that assume an eventual turnaround in fiscal conditions are difficult to justify. Projected future economic realities indicate a scenario very different from past projections.”
The key to transformation is focusing on developing a vision of the future that challenges our conventional way of doing things and focuses on two overarching purposes: enhancing student learning and maintaining a decent quality of faculty work life. Unlike many models of learner-centered education, Guskin and Marcy acknowledge the importance of reestablishing a quality of life for faculty that allows universities to remain true to their core values while responding to inevitable economic and cultural change.
Achieving the vision won’t be easy in that it requires changes to some deeply held assumptions about the nature of higher learning. But if the structural financial changes predicted by the article are accurate, the consequences of not changing may be even more painful than giving up some cherished assumptions.
Susan Evans pointed me in the direction of this student produced-video on the situation at William and Mary campus. I think it’s a very effective piece of student work that captures a much better sense of what’s actually happening on campus than what I’ve seen in the “mainstream” media. The video itself is a potent argument for why having the right media tools in the hands of students is so effective–particularly with the support of folks like Sharon Zuber and Troy Davis.
Several folks from the BOV will be on campus this afternoon to meet with staff, faculty and students. You can follow the action from the student perspective on Tribeunited.com or Wrengate.
